Top Russian TV star calls for gays to be burned alive in ovens, fans cheer

Any remaining argument as to whether Russia was a modern, developed country went out the window today as a leading Russian TV star, Ivan Okhlobystin, called for the country’s several-million-strong gay and lesbian population to be thrown into ovens and burned alive.

Okhlobystin is one of the stars of the hit Russian show “Interns,” a rip-off of the TV show “Scrubs.” “Interns” was rated Russia’s best TV show in 2012. There was no indication from the Russian media that Okhlobystin faced any punishment from his employer.

In America, or western Europe, your TV career would be over if you publicly endorsed the Holocaust. In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, it’s just another day at the Kremlin, and might even get you a promotion.

Speaking of which, and equally fascinating, if you could call it that, was the coverage of this story in RIA Novosti, the lead Russian state media entity that’s being closed down by Putin, and replaced with a propaganda network run by a man who called for gays’ hearts to be burned.

RIA Novosti has a reputation for conducting actual objective journalism, and you can’t have that in an underdeveloped dictatorship.

But RIA Novosti outdid itself on this story. After discussing what Okhlobystin said, RIA Novosti then concluded with the following three paragraphs that were simply remarkable, considering the danger to your career, and your person, in speaking out in Russia:

Anti-gay sentiment is on the rise in Russia. Rights activists say legislation approved last year to ban the promotion of homosexuality among minors has fueled a climate of intolerance toward the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

Prominent television presenter Dmitry Kiselyov, who was this week appointed by the Kremlin to head a news agency that is set to replace RIA Novosti, called in 2012 to “burn or bury the hearts of gays” that die in car crashes.

He did stop short of promoting actually burning gay people alive, as Okhlobystin has done, however.

Wow. It’s pretty clear that the folks at RIA Novosti are not pleased about Putin shutting down their news agency, nor are they thrilled at who’s taking over. That was one heck of a swipe to take at a news entity created by, and for, Vladimir Putin. And, RIA Novosti acknowledged the growing anti-gay climate in Russia, and referenced activists’ concerns that the draconian new anti-gay propaganda law if fueling the hate. That kind of thing just isn’t done.

What a sad, backwards, messed up country. Any notion that Russia was part of the civilized world, just two months before the country hosts the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, just got burnt to a crisp.

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John AravosisFollow me on Twitter: @aravosis | @americablog | @americabloggay | Facebook | Instagram | Google+ | LinkedIn. John Aravosis is the Executive Editor of AMERICAblog, which he founded in 2004. He has a joint law degree (JD) and masters in Foreign Service from Georgetown; and has worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, and as a stringer for the Economist. He is a frequent TV pundit, having appeared on the O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline, AM Joy & Reliable Sources, among others. John lives in Washington, DC. John's article archive.

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It’s almost as if none of the homophobes have ever watched MTV Spring Break or Taxicab Confessions or Jackass. And when they bring up “procreation” as the reason why same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry, the first thing that comes to my mind is that procreation should be REQUIRED of all heterosexual couples, otherwise their frivolous and vain unions will be dissolved.

cantake8

You’re correct, it is a mistaken tack. But it proves one mustn’t be anti-semitic to be genocidal.

cantake8

At least it’s easy to parallel this person and his fans with villains in history who did exactly as he said to whomever happened to be unpopular at the time. What ugly, filthy hearts full of garbage and hatred.

Anonymous

I am not gay but what i am surprised at is how easily heterosexuals have termed homosexuality to be “Unnatural Sex” Here is a
detailed view point of the topic which may change everyones’ mindset
about the topic.

The LGBT’s in Russia have little social or political power, which is far different than the situation in pre-Nazi Germany. Jews as an ethnic group largely backed the Communists in Germany, and they almost won in the battle for public support against the nationalists. It’s far different situation and dishonest to even try to compare the two

Kate Bennet

Implying Russia has an anti-semitic past is laughable. Over half of the first Soviet politburo was Jewish, and they remained in many positions of power for decades. It’s also funny how this anti-semtic nation names an entire oblast (admittedly small one) after Jewish people

CanadianaKid

Bill_Perdue – what article are you responding to? This one is about gays being persecuted in Russia. You seem to be responding to something else entirely – American aggression in the Middle East and the US as terrorists.
The one thing from this article you did seem to address is the high degree of anti-semetism in Russia. Are you denying that? I can’t tell from the manner in which you state your argument. However, I can tell you that there is a great deal of anti-semetism in Russia, and it is on the rise. And that sucks, regardless of how the US conducts itself around the world.

CanadianaKid

Dear Russia;
Please send us your gays. We would be happy to have them live, thrive and contribute to our wonderful, open-minded, inclusive and progressive country of Canada. While you’re at it, we’ll happily welcome your Jewish population too.
If you require any help re-establishing the wall that was torn down with such excitement and celebration in 1989, please let us know. I’d be happy to help.
Welcome back to the dark ages, Russia.

Benjamin Neuells

Diversity just means NO MORE White people.
Multiculturalism just means NO MORE White people.
Integration just means NO MORE White people.
—
DIEversity is a geNOcidal SCAM!
MultiCULTuralism is a geNOcidal SCAM!
Integration is a geNOcidal SCAM!
–
STOP WHITE geNOcide!

And dead wrong. The zionist state is a client of the US, dependent on the US and largely controlled by US interests, which are promoted by having a bunkerstadt in the region reviled by everyone to divert attention away from US wars of aggression.

The US is the most dangerous terrorist state on the planet today. US wars of aggression include the recent genocide in Iran and attacks on Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Palestine, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Zionist colonists were only involved in one of those attacks, and not as Jews but as zionists. Growing numbers of Jews oppose the zionist colony in Palestine.

In 1930s Weimar Germany, Jews controlled 103 of the 109 German banks, all the news media, and nearly all the government representatives. Organized Jewry thrived and flaunted its wealth while the WW1 reparations burdened Goyim Germans were near starvation, angry, and increasingly desperate. By 1933, Jews were being corralled together for their own protection. With the rise of Der Fuhrer, many did not survive.

Of today’s Americans, 2% are Jews. Of today’s American millionaires, 50% are Jews. As in Weimar Germany, they are organized and cunningly extract enormous amounts of money from our economy without contributing value. Wall Street has become a Jewish run casino serving itself and Jewry. Our news media is mostly Jewish owned and blatantly Israel/Jew biased.

Our electoral process has been corrupted by AIPAC, the Jewish Conference of Presidents and more enormous amounts of Jewish money. Israel has occupied not just Palestine, but America too. The Wall Street felons remaining unpunished, AIPAC actually writing congressional legislation, and lack of treason indictments attest to the depth of the occupation.

The Jewish state instigated all our Mideast wars and benefited from all. None were in American interests, yet we did the dying and suffered the Great Recession. Our diminished America is now being overthrown from within and transformed into a world dominating racist ultrapower, the JEWISH STATE OF AMERICA.

StraightGrandmother

I remember that.
It excited and thrilled me to see your country protesting.

What is the Remote Control Church? A wing of the Republican Party?
/snark

Butch1

They have plenty of issues regarding women and gays. They are more backward than the RC church.

Butch1

This POS looks as though he has a huge skeleton in his own closet that needs opening for the whole world to see. It’s people such as this person that deserves what’s coming to him once he’s exposed.

If he does turn out to be a self-hating gay man who has hidden behind a marriage and children out of fear of being exposed for the slime he is, ( and that is not being gay it is being a hater of gays ) he deserves the scorn of his public and his wife needs to take a good look at the pseudo “man” she married. Did he really love her in the first place or was she just a beard for his internalized homophobia he projected upon respectable gays?

FLL

Not completely off-topic: Heads of state are beginning to boycott the Sochi Olympics. French president François Hollande won’t attend, nor will any member of the French government:

Germany’s President Joachim Gauck won’t attend. German chancellor Anna Merkel has condemned Russia’s anti-gay laws, although she hasn’t yet declared an official boycott. President and Mrs. Obama have made no plans to attend the Sochi Olympics, even though Mrs. Obama made plans to attend the Summer Olympics in London four months in advance. Likewise, no member of the British royal family has made any plans to attend Sochi. We still need the U.S., British and German governments to announce the kind of official boycott that the French government just did. Vive la France! Please note that this refers to the government delegation to the Sochi Olympics. I believe French athletes will still be competing.

Bill_Perdue

It doesn’t matter. It was a call for mass murder. It represents a new low for the Putin regime and it’s supporters.

And like similar calls in the similarly uncivilized US it puts us all in danger. (1) (2) Here the evangelists have long insisted that our deaths from HIV/AIDS are sanctioned by the thunder gods and that we can be murdered on a whim. In Russia, the Putin regimes attacks on our brothers and sisters began in the last two or three years as he courted the Russian orthodox cult and are producing violent hate speech and hate crimes, although not nearly on the scale of the US.

Here the Clintons, the Bushes, Obama and many others in the Democrat and Republican parties court the cults. We can learn several lessons from what happened here. Attacks on the LGBT communities by successive Democrat and Republican regimes in the US began 17 years ago during the Clinton regime with the passage of signing of DADT and DOMA. Clinton betrayed us on DADT and then championed DOMA, signing it and gloating about it in his TV ads.

Politicians have been just as bad in spreading the hate and causing the violence. Democrat Clinton’s DADT and DOMA, the Republican Bush/Rove anti-marriage amendments or laws in 30 some states and Democrat Obama’s attack on marriage equality during the Prop 8 debate and his use of violently anti-LGBT bigots Rick Warren and Donnie McClurkin to boost his campaign enabled the violence, just as they do in Putin’s Russia.

The sad truth is that there will likely be many more victims in Russia, just as anti-gay violence continues to flare up in the US. The most recent flare up has gone on about two years in New York because of the efforts of Democrats like violently anti-GLBT state Senator Reverend Ruben Diaz (Senior, Diaz Jr. rebranded and is pro-LGBT) and NY archbishop Dolan. It’s featured kidnappings, murders and several beatings.

The complicity of NBC contract employees and NBC/MSNBC/Comcast’s significant and near total silence on the subject of Sochi and Putin’s anti-gay campaign puts them the same boat as Obama, who met with Russian GLBT groups but refused meaningful support. NBC is the Democrats equivalent of the Republicans Fox.

Those like myself who identify with the anti-Stalinist left and the fight for workers democracy have a particular hatred for the Putin regime, which is trying to reintroduce a police state there, just as Obama is here. And in both cases it’s not going to end the opposition, just widen and deepen it. The courage of our Russian brothers and sisters in the face of Putin’s barbaric attacks is their best weapon and we can support it by boycotting Putin’s American allies – the IOC, NBC/MSNBC/Comcast, Coke and the rest.

The desperation and incivility of today’s recession has parallels to the Great Depression.

Jafafa Hots

The IOC is a despicable organization.
Maybe the athlete could bribe them to keep their medal.

Scottie Starlitsky

What a disgraceful and terrifying thing to say to your fellow man and human being! What kind of world do these people live in where they believe that actively incinerating innocent individuals is a legitimate and appropriate manner in which to conduct oneself? Words cannot express the amount of outrage and disgust at Russia’s homophobia and their brutal homophobic regime.

alexander

Okhlobystin is a former Orthodox priest. I’m from Russia, yes.

Cindy Williams

Certain segments are very superstitious and will blame gay people for God’s wrath on humanity. We are all worried in today’s world, about money, the environment, and about being mistreated and oppressed by people in high places. Of course, the gay people will become a good scapegoat in some places like India and now this in Russia. We have our Westboro Baptist Church here in the USA. It’s all about fear. We MUST stop being afraid. We must all learn to think.

Butch1

I won’t look.

alexander

You’ll laugh, but Okhlobystin was a presidential candidate in the last election

Butch1

This is Germany circa 1939 all over again. Don’t these people ever read their own history? sigh . . .

Badgerite

They can’t claim any real difference in economic system. I wouldn’t even call Russia a socialist leaning country anymore ( if it ever was ). I think he’s looking for a way to drive a wedge between a European /American more liberal sphere of influence and a Russian sphere ( which he is clearly trying to recreate).

POB

He is living on borrowed time. And so are all who would halt progress and spread hate and violence among their own species. They are traitors to humanity, and the axe shall fall upon their heads.

benb

No, I didn’t think about the way he appears in the photos (you know, the game “Gay or Eurotrash?”…I can’t tell) . It’s the Roy Cohn-ish attitude that if he persecutes gays no one will think he’s gay.

4th Turning

Czar Putin I is spending over 50,000,000 on the olympics. (Brazil is projecting over 30,000,000.)

It can’t be left to our favorite news personalities and talkshow hosts to raise this issue (including
India). The Post and The Times and other mainstream media (biased as they are suppose to be
since Nixon) need to be investigating and reporting. “Enlightened” young people in Egypt, Iran,
India, Africa are conveniently dismissed as being brain-laundered by Western decadence-now
standard fodder for fundamentalists and nationalists.
What’s the deal with this internet anyway? Is it only youtube pratfalls that manage to go
instantly viral? Can’t Russian speaking bloggers post words of caution or outright warnings
on questionable Russian websites? Has the LGBT community in Russia given any further
advice on how we might best assist? Are victims needing financial help?

POB

I would destroy him. I call for breaking this asshole’s nose and pummeling him within an inch of his pathetic life.

The primary things that the US imports from Russia are raw materials (crude oil, steel, aluminum, nickel, etc) that the average consumer has no way of ever actually being able to make a conscious choice to boycott them.

StraightGrandmother

Just a FYI if an athlete does that they loose their Medal.

Monoceros Forth

There’s not much to boycott, specially since I don’t drink vodka. Russian dressing? Tchaikovsky’s 2nd Symphony? The Petrov Defence?

Nathanael

At the last “election”, generally assumed fraudulent, there were huge “Putin must go” protests which attracted the support of every major figure in Russia.

Putin lost popular support already at that point. The question is when he’s going to go far enough to trigger another coup or revolution.

Nathanael

The Soviet Union fell when many divisons of soliders refused to support the military coup against Gorbachev.

My question then, is, what’s the attitude of the generals towards Putin. If enough of them are disgusted by him, his control of the FSB and history with the KGB won’t matter — real military always beats paramilitary if they are opposite sides.

Politics without democracy: it’s about counting the divisions who support you, oppose you, or are neutral. :-P

Nathanael

Russia still has brutal forced-labor prison camps. But I don’t think anyone’s going to be willing to rebuild the gulags on their original scale — they were absolutely enormous under Stalin.

ArthurH

Or in the early years of the 20th Century when the Russian czar mandated pogroms against Jewish citizens in Russia. Anti-Semitism runs so deep in Russia that it continued after the czar was overthrown through the Stalin years.

medcannabis1

BOYCOTT ALL THINGS RUSSIAN!

Harald Seiwert

The LGBT community in Russia is (on a smaller scale) in a situation where the Jewish people were in Germany 1933. In 1936 the whole world watched Hitler’s Olympic propaganda show in Berlin. We all know what happened to the Jews after that. Only difference to Putin’s Sochi propaganda show 2014 is the fact that now everybody knows about his violation of human rights. Nobody can say “I did not know” if the terror against LGBT escalates (like many Germans said in 1945 as a lame excuse)

4th Turning

I only heard it mentioned a few times at the beginning of his reign and absolutely never since in any
media coverage I’m aware of-Putin was former head of the KBG. So he knows when all of us are
sleeping, he knows when we are awake…
Whether a sugary Gone with the Wind or the equally high fructose corn syrup historical revision
set to go for another season of Downton Abbey, the obscenely rich and seemingly all-powerful
have with the ever-present machinations of organized religion, cleverly managed to hold on by
getting the poor and disenfranchised to turn on each other. Soviet commissars lived in gated
communities. Rewarding children for turning in grumbling parents: standard operating
procedure. (Recall Martin Luther despised peasants and supported brutal princely handling
of the situation. And don’t get me going on what those British “betters” done to the Irish…)
Anyway. appreciate Bill Perdue’s listing some logical first steps in harnessing outrage and
protest energy. Hand-wringing and furtively watching those amazing speed skaters
isn’t going to convince anyone “we’re mad as hell and not going to take it anymore”.
Where are you dear Peter Finch when you’re so badly needed now…
It was the 80’s college crowd that finally got liberal arts centers of some kind of learning
(certainly skimping on moral/ethical studies in those days) to divest in apartheid. Surely,
marriage equality is more than freedom to spend big money on lavish weddings.

This little pig sounds like Scott Lively, who lost an appeal to end his prosecution under a crimes against humanity lawsuit.

In August a federal judge allowed the case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), a Ugandan group of LGBT groups to move forward. Lively played a key role, along with Obama BBFs Rick Warren and Donnie McClurkin in propagating anti-LGBT hate in a number of African counties. ‘Ex-gay’ Donnie McClurkin was active in South, home of the effort to change lesbians by gang rape and Warren and Lively promoted the effort to enact the “Kill
the Gays” bill although Warren backed off at the last minute. (some data from wiki)

Globally, as economies fail and capitalists turn against workers and try to impose austerity and bust unions, ruling groups are going to scapegoat sexual and racial minorities to divert attention from their economic problems. We’ve seen that for years with the mad ayatollahs of Iran who routinely murder our brothers and and sisters, and in Iraq where US trained and armed police and militias routinely kidnap, torture and murder gays.

We should back efforts to divest from NBC, Coke and other bigot groups and enablers. We should back what ever plans our Russian sisters and brother have to protest, assuming they’re even allowed to protest and we should begin our own protests at USOC training venues.

lit per

we must strip them of their fake “perfect” equality indexes, a company which supports burning gays in ovens has nothing to do with equality

I refer to this as the ‘Nazi Devolution,’ which I’ve seen happen in individuals, groups, and societies.

It’s starts out as, “What the Nazis did was terrible. We’d never advocate that.” For a time, even hate-groups will be there.

Then it becomes “People are exaggerating what the Nazis did. They’re playing the victim card.”

Then it becomes denialism: “The Nazis never did any of what’s being claimed.”

Then they embrace it: “Y’know, the Nazis had some good ideas regarding undesirables…”

Russia is heading right into phase 4 there. Obviously forgetting what the Nazis did to their own people during the war.

FLL

Just because of the orange-tinted sunglasses, neckerchief, pinky ring and exquisite facial contortions? I’ve attached his photo below. He could be a drill sergeant for the U.S. Marines, don’t you think?

Monoceros Forth

That first quote from the Guardian article is very disquieting. It seems that Putin is playing a subtle and insidious game here, because talk about moral relativism and the evils of “so-called tolerance” sounds to me like the sort of talk pitched specifically to American ears.

Stev84

No. The Gulag was closed in the early 1960s. Just the sheer scale of it would be impossible today. There were millions of prisoners in hundreds of camps. Some of those camps turned into cities though that still exist. Especially in isolated areas where there was no other infrastructure.

They still have forced labor in Russia however. Just not on the same scale.

Monoceros Forth

You know what this reminds me of the most? Back in the ’90s you started seeing news stories about how the big American tobacco companies, fearful of declining demand for their products at home, were starting aggressively to push cigarettes in the newly opened Eastern European marketplaces. (See, for example, this lovely item about how Philip Morris swooped in to save Russia from a cigarette shortage in 1990: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/tobacco/stories/global3.htm )

It looks like the right-wing Bible-bashing crowd is adopting the same strategy: knowing that the demand for their product in America is only going to decline with time, they’re looking abroad to find new markets in which to sell faith-based bigotry.

Tom in Lazybrook

This is an important catch. Hey America, here’s a kids movie from an open and unrepentant advocate of Genocide!

jomicur

Hey, what’s more important, the lives, rights and dignity of millions of people or the right of a few prima donnas to figure skate? It’s certainly clear what Weir’s answer would be.

jomicur

I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the techniques they will use to “convert” gays will be the ones that were used in this country back in the day. Electroshock, aversion therapy, castration (both chemical and surgical), and on and on. Their “science,” like their “thought,” is lodged firmly in the past.

There was a doctor here in Pittsburgh who was cheerfully practicing electroshock on gay teens as recently as the 1980s. I know this because I almost adopted one of them. The treatments were so horrific that the boy broke out of the psych ward where he’d been imprisoned, ran away to Florida and supported himself by hustling. He seroconverted and subsequently committed suicide. So I know from my own experience how horrible these techniques are and how deadly their consequences. Seeing them institutionalized again, even on the other side of the planet, chills me more deeply than I can express.

FLL

There is homophobia in places like Jamaica and Uganda, but nothing as public as this. What makes the situation in Russia unique? Russia is threatening the world with its status as a nuclear power in the name of leading the charge against gay and bisexual people and their allies everywhere. That sure isn’t a claim you could make about Jamaica or Uganda. Don’t believe me? Take a look at Putin’s 70-minute State of the Nation address from a couple days ago. Here is a link to the article in the Guardian:http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/12/vladimir-putin-defends-russia-anti-gay-conservatism
And this is an excerpt from the Guardian article:

In an apparent reference to the laws banning “propaganda of non-traditional relations”, the Russian president said that on the international arena Russia sees itself as a defender of conservative values against what it considers an assault of “genderless and fruitless so-called tolerance” which he said “equals good and evil”.

What kind of power does Putin intend to use in order to lead his international crusade against gay people? Read on:

He warned the west against developing non-nuclear strategic military technology which could upset the global balance and lead to a new arms race. He said Russia was closely watching these developments and ready to respond by developing similar technology.

You don’t hear the leaders of any other country making global threats like this, let alone a nuclear armed superpower. I believe Putin intends to wage his campaign of hate against gay people on a global level. Fortunately, I think the world is a different place than it was in the 1930s. I believe our generation is capable of confronting Putin’s twisted amibitions and holding the line for civilization in our time.

MyrddinWilt

I think the references to the holocaust can only be intentional and Putin’s aim is to intimidate people.

The Soviet union is gone but the whole apparatus that pampered the ego of the leader survived. They don’t have the full police state apparatus though, not yet.

They have four groups of stormtroopers ready to ‘own the streets’ if a popular uprising might be threatened.

The key difference is that Putin is only looking out for his personal rule. He doesn’t have an ideology claiming to be perpetual.

As long as the athletes get to compete! They’ve worked so hard! It would be a shame to let a little holocaust stop them.

StraightGrandmother

I Tweeted all the sponsors links to this story
@CocaCola @Atos @DowChemical @generalelectric @McDonalds @omegawatches @panasonic @ProcterGamble @samsung @Visa
The #Sochi2014 Sponsors

Anony Mouse

I can’t even look.

lit per

Remember that Weir and NBC openly support this!

Tyler Albertario

He voices the main character in the movie The Snow Queen, due for a US DVD release on January 28, 2014. Vertical Entertainment is the US distributor of the film. Here is their website (the email addresses and personal telephone numbers of the company Co-Presidents and Marketing rep are at the bottom of the page):

Most of the cast of the English-dubbed version are fairly well-known voice actors and actresses, who more likely than not, have Twitter handles.

Jafafa Hots

You mean the IOC that takes bribes for where to locate future Olympics?
Do something decent?

Seriously, we should be boycotting ALL Olympics until they stop being an organized crime operation.

Jafafa Hots

Remember the black power salute in ’68?

If they aren’t going to boycott, wouldn’t it be great to see an American (or anyone else really) on the podium whip out a rainbow flag and start waving it just after having the gold medal placed around their neck?

If Westboro Baptist Church went to Russia, they would be celebrities, but loved, not reviled as they are here in the states.

Anonymous

It’s also okay for thugs to get away with murder there. Before you exalt the country so much, I’d love to see you live in that environment.
I know what you’re thinking, “but I’m not gay” – that’s like saying the country is a utopia that peacefully disagrees with gays. It’s not – it’s a dilapidated joke.

Anonymous

He’s a TV star. People like this influence youths

Anonymous

A mass demonstration needs to happen at the Olympics. We can’t support their faux idyllic image at this time, not while we have a say.

Anonymous

Was it the glasses?

Anonymous

So comparisons to WW2 are still “manipulative?” Trolls need to open mouth, insert foot. Disgusting.

cole3244

from the looks of our voting rights or lack there of in america the rw con gop is pointing us in the same direction if they have their way as far as people of color are concerned, if that succeeds the gay community will be the fascist gop’s next target.
be vigilant america be vigilant.

barada

Russia’s image is tumbling right down into the sewer.

This is just a thought, but the NHL is the most advanced sports league,

It’s getting like “Walking Dead”, with the anti-gay zombie-virus seemingly spreading.
Now it’s getting in the borscht, or something.
Probably was always there, and just uncoiling itself publically, now.

Gay Rights, for me, are at the epicenter of Progressive values. When we fight the gay-hater A-Holes, we will find they are largely the same cretins we fight in our economic battles, only cruder. I may be just a breeder, but I totally recognize this. To me, the Fight For Human Justice is linked heart and soul to the pursuit of rights for LGBT people.
As far as the regressive social and economic zombies we both face, just remember—
Against zombies it’s:

Actually, no, as Becca noted, you’re only free to spout the party line in Russia, the same way it was with the Soviets. Anyone who disagrees with Putin, Stalin, Lenin, whoever the current leader is, loses their job, gets sent to jail, and possibly gets attacked as well. In America, we beat the crap out of our president all the time, and nothing happens to us. No retribution at work, no one throws us in jail. We have freedom of speech, but we’re also a civilized country, which Russia is not. IN America, no one gives you a promotion because you’re a Nazi. You’re free to be a Nazi, absolutely. But don’t expect it to help your career. So, not only does America have more free speech than Russia, by far. But Russia hasn’t even become civilized enough to understand that embracing the Holocaust as a “good” way to deal with minorities is pretty repugnant.

Russia’s clearly heading down that road, with prisons and involuntary commitment to mental hospitals will come first, then the formal gulags…then someone will suggest a ‘final solution.’ Well, actually, we already have it being suggested by monsters like this man.

This never ends well.

Lawerence Collins

I’m just waiting to see what, Brown, Perkins or Lively have to say about this. Those odious frauds claim they’re not about violence! Yeah right!

John

Perhaps it’s time us F*ggots did some straight bashing. I see a revolt coming and no straight person will be spared unless they’ve made it very clear who’s side they’re on. Enough playing nice.

Mighty

How much longer before this actually happens? This scares the hell out of me.

nicho

No. Only homophobes who agree with Putin are free to say what they want. Others are beaten, tortured and murdered.

Hue-Man

Is the Gulag infrastructure still in place? I was on a Solzhenitsyn kick in my teens – Archipelago, Denisovich, First Circle, Cancer Ward, August 1914. “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” probably affected me the most – I don’t know whether I could read it again, today.

Russia’s treatment of gays has all the hallmarks of terrorism – I know I would feel terrorized if I were living in 2013 Russia, with all its similarities to 1933 Germany. I would have no problem classifying the American hate groups as supporters of terrorism.

pappyvet

Before the people of the world, let it now be noted that here, in our decision, this is what we stand for: justice, truth, and the value of a single human being.”Judgment at Nuremberg”

I am of course gay and out and recently had my DNA tested and the paternal DNA halo group came back as R1a1 which is that of the ashkenazi jews. There is a family history that my father’s family (surname Libera) was forced to convert to Catholicism from Judaism in the 1600s. So now I am a member of two minorities. I think there needs to be serious action taken against Russia.

Kiselyov just wanted dead, gay hearts burned. He got a whole news agency as a reward.

Okhlobystin wants whole, live gays burned. Maybe he’s expecting to get the Kremlin.

Gest2016

Expect America Inc. and it CEO Barack Obama to remain relatively silent, or perhaps pay lip service to this growing genocide. I have a relative who works for Mobile Exxon, the second biggest American corporation on the planet, and he just negotiated a multi-year multi-billion dollar natural gas development deal with Russia. As the oil markets continue to stagnate and even decline due to decreased globel demand, Russia will increasingly rely on dramatic pogroms and genocides to keep the population in line and keep dissent in check. There is already huge domestic unrest brewing just beneath the surface, and much discontent aimed at Putin himself. He’s running scared, and even though likely a closeted gay himself, he won’t hesitate to throw gays in the oven as part of his political bread and circus to keep his Kleptocracy in power.

Thom Allen

Go, Grannie! You knocked that one out of the park!

David

Any idea of how many people were at the meet and greet? 10, 100, 1,000?

dula

Why would they have to? If openly gay Olympian cum NBC commentator Johnny Weir feels safe, and says that national feelings against the Russian LGBT community are simply exaggerated in the media, it can’t be all that serious.

StraightGrandmother

The Prominent Gay Rights Bloggers AND Queer Nation New York and particularly AllOut were right, right from the first incidents. And those of use who regularly read them knew also. This does not surprise us, we expected this escalation. I do believe we will see camps, camps where sexual minorities are sent to for re-orientation therapy, if you cannot successfully fake heterosexuality you will never leave the camps because the Russian people falsely believe the lies they have been told that sexual minorities are dangerous to children.

Remember Paul Cameron was just in Russia and testified before the Russian DUMA. Paul.Cameron.
I have never seen a transcript of what he said, but I sure would like to.

Remember Scott Lively was just in Russia within the last 6 months and said he was working on finding a Russian Publisher for his book the Pink Triangle.

Remember Rockford Illinois based World Congress of Families opened up an outpost in Russia in 2012 and hired a Russian Director. I forget his name but he went on Voice of Russia and said that HE is the one who came up with the No Gay Propaganda Law. It was in one of these Radio Shows

Remember the French Haters Manif Pour Tous who have made multiple forrays to Russia one with Brian Brown.

The Russians really believe that sexual minorities ARE dangerous to children and that westerners, not all but some, support them and this theory. The cover for the camps will be that the deviants are sent there to be helped and I can only imagine what methods will be used to turn a gay man straight. It makes me shudder. It will not be long until there will be camps. My heart bleeds for sexual minorities in Russia, it truly does.

A good person to interview would be Dr. Laurie Essig professor of Sociology at Middlebury College. She wrote the book “Queer in Russia” and last month was a a conference in Russia on sexual minorities. Dr. Essig, I believe will tell you, that the Russians don’t need any help from our various Haters, that anti gay hatred is deeply ingrained in Russians already.

Max_1

The IOC will listen to SPONSORS that threaten to pull out (pun intended)…
… BOYCOT/PROTEST the sponsors of the Olympics.

Money talks…

Max_1

Correct John,
In fact, I’m inclined to believe (understatement of the year) that the anti-propaganda law is having a deleterious effect upon the psyche on the nation of Russia and it’s people.

Bj Lincoln

Now that Russia seems to agree with the hate spewed forth by this ass, will the IOC say anything? Or America issue travel warnings?
Have we heard from the Right yet? I bet we don’t hear a the. They agree and are quietly cheering but they can’t do it publicly. If they do, can’t we ask for an IRS review of their tax exemption? By openly cheering on Russia, they prove they are exporting their hate and no longer just to stop equal marriage in the USA. I am sick of our government supplementing hate groups with exemptions.

nicho

Why do I have the feeling that the more these public figures try to outdo each other in their anti-gay hate speech, the more they’re trying to hide their own sexual orientation. This was very common here back in the day – and sometimes even now — when closeted homosexuals tried to get the spotlight off themselves. The biggest closet queens told the worst “fag jokes.”